Quick answer: Each of them led extraordinary lives. And each of them has a Rochester city school or educational program that carries her name.

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Clara Barton(Photo11: AP file photo)

Barton (School 2), who had a country home in Dansville, Livingston County, founded the American Red Cross. Bethune (No. 45) was a pioneering African-American educator, who, among many other accomplishments, started a school for girls in Florida.

Florence S. Brown, the namesake of the Florence S. Brown Pre-K Center in Rochester, graduated from what is now the College at Brockport and championed early childhood education here. Montgomery was the first women elected to the Rochester school board, and, along with Susan B. Anthony, she led the drive for co-education at the University of Rochester.

Mary McLeod Bethune(Photo11: NONE, GNS)

Each of these women is also an exception to a bias in school naming, a bias that works in favor of men. As near as I can tell, there are 27 Rochester city schools or programs that are named in honor of a man.

Some of these men are national or international figures. School 8 is the Roberto Clemente School. And there’s the Abraham Lincoln School (School 22) and the Theodore Roosevelt School (School 43).

Some of the other men established their credentials here, including Walter Cooper (School 10), the Eastman Kodak Co. scientist and civil rights advocate, and Dr. Charles T. Lunsford (School 19), the first African-American physician in Rochester.

Cooper and Lunsford’s stories have relevance to city school students, I would think. Probably some of the names on some of the buildings are harder to connect to, among them George Mather Forbes (School 4) and Frank Fowler Dow (School 52).

As the Democrat and Chronicle’s Bob Marcotte made clear in a 2003 series, each of these men, like those who also have buildings designated with their names, were once important.

Forbes was on the city’s school board from 1900 to 1912, serving as president the last six years. Dow was a physician elected to the board in 1895 who became an expert on school law.

And then there’s James P.B. Duffy, a school board member from 1905 to 1932. In 1972, his name was put on the renovated School 12 on South Avenue.

Duffy led an admirable life — he was also a one-term member of Congress and a state Supreme Court justice.

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However, it’s understandable that the board is considering changing the school’s name to something that alludes to the fact that the building stands where the home of Frederick and Anna Douglass once stood.

One proposal is that the school might carry the names of both Frederick and Anna.

But I wonder if it might be just as effective and appropriate to single out Anna alone. She helped Frederick escape from slavery, was the mother of their five children and ran a Rochester stop on the Underground Railroad.

And putting her name, and only her name, on the building would be one step in correcting the gender imbalance of school names.

That might open the door to other female honorees. Susan B. Anthony, among others, is waiting in the wings.

On Remarkable Rochester

Retired Senior Editor Jim Memmott reflects on what makes Rochester distinctively Rochester, its history, its habits, its people. Since 2010, he has also been compiling a list of Remarkable Rochesterians. Contact him at: (585) 278-8012 or jmemmott@DemocratandChronicle.com or Remarkable Rochester, Box 274, Geneseo, NY, 14454.

Remarkable Rochesterians

At the suggestion of her son-in-law, Paul Williams, let’s add the name of this real estate leader to the list of Remarkable Rochesterians that can be found at rochester.nydatabases.com:

Virginia Knapp(Photo11: Staff)

Virginia E. Knapp (1932-2018): A graduate of Rochester’s Ben Franklin High School, she attended Rochester Business Institute and worked at Eastman Kodak Co. before she started selling real estate in 1957 at a time when the field was dominated by men. She opened the real estate office in Irondequoit that carried her name in 1967. By the time she closed her office in the 1990s, she was a major force in the market in Irondequoit. She was member of the Rochester Real Estate Board and served as the group’s treasurer.